Lizzie at Perfume Lovers London asked me to create a refreshed brandmark for her to use across their social networks and associated materials. In her moodboards she said Perfume Lovers London is: fun, modern, intelligent and refreshing with a touch of heritage. She liked London's Royal Opera House logo, particularly for the treatment of modern type against heraldic motifs.
I started with pencil and paper.
I began with the heraldry angle and outlined some simple shield shapes and took cue from the City of London's coat of arms
Noses were an obvious direction too. What interesting nose shapes could I use?
I sketched some quick typographic ideas and visual puns of the river Thames, a geeky heart and sillage
What could I also do with just the first letter of each word? Does it imply I <3 NY? Could I use the nose here too?
I took into consideration the application of the logo online primarily over printed materials. It needed to work in many sizes from favicons to avatars. Shapes needed to be simple, clear and modern.
How could I creatively add all the elements onto a coat of arms? Does it still look obvious?
Borrowing the cross from the City of London's coat of arms made the logo look religious-like
I had to think about how the three words Perfume Lovers London would read if they weren't placed together
I also tried adding a spray motif but wasn't sure how well this would work at smaller sizes
I was taken with the idea of using lines instead of filled-in shapes to evoke the modernity Lizzie was after. There would be a handover of the logo for her and the team to use too so I had to ensure things would scale well and not require separate logos for different sizes.
I really loved the idea of a play with ribbons from traditional coat of arms and the shape of the river Thames. I tried to merge into that the outline of a pair of noses suggesting a meet-up.
How do I bring all this together? What exisiting shapes can I borrow from: perfume bottles or obvious coat of arms?
I sent off the sketches to Lizzie and she was great at suggesting ideas and exploring other options – her feedback:
- Coat of arms/heraldry is nice.
- I don't think river Thames works in a shield or contained space. River works in landscape format where you have an idea of its shape and it's got room to breathe.
- And when combined with noses it looks a bit face like.
- The sketch I've attached shows how we might use four quadrants. I'm not sure about the flower or at least could play with something else here. But perfume bottle, heart and nose makes sense for other 3 quadrants.
- Then under that perhaps a simple typograpic name - perhaps nostrils don't appear in the two Ls if it is displayed with the shield, as we have the nose there anyway - but could be nice to have them there if we want to use it without the shield.
- I am drawn to your idea of making the shield a perfume bottle - but thinking this could get complicated?
Liam: How about we take two of these ideas and work up into graphic options? Or if you just have time for one right now we can do that.
I sent these options back to Lizie and she really liked option A but felt the heart was a bit cryptic so we continued to refine this direction.
At this stage I was honing in on a particular treatment for the logomark so I explored ideas of a simple sans-serif type to accompany it.
Lizzie went with the option directly above sans the coloured approach. On reflection the coloured approach could appear a bit vague out of context. At this point I created the master files for her and others in the group to use.
I think this logo succeeded the brief and Lizzie was very happy with the result. There are elements of it I can see in reflection where I'd liked to have had more time to refine or enhance it. At times when I look at it I'm not sure it's heraldic enough, or perhaps I could have explored more type options. Ultimately I did what I could with a relatively short deadline but the client was happy!
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